Put your camera in AV mode. Set your aperture as large as possible (low fstop). Set your ISO to 100 or 200. This will help you to capture action better.

You may also want to consider a better camera. A used DSLR with a decent lens would run ~$800, I'm assuming this is probably too expensive. You may want to consider a Fuji Finepix s5200 or Canon S2IS or S3IS. The S2IS is an older model that can be bought for dirt cheap these days. These cameras are "prosumer" superzoom models that take pretty good photos.

If you buy a new camera, don't pay more for more megapixels. You don't need more than 5-8 megapixels.

geekyrocketguy- alright thanks. ill look into changing the settings and mess with it tomorrow at the field. i am considering a new camera but im not really sure if i can drop 800. but i will look for something in my price range then consult with you guys, since you obviously know more, just to make sure its worth the money

Mr.jon- i didnt mean steal. but i want to have some type of media logo/symbol so people know who took the photo whether it be good or bad.

minikillersam- thanks sammy, glad you appreciate it.

all the people who put the pictures down and dont actually give help/advice like i asked for, please post pictures that you take, i would like to see them.

most everyone else here has said just about all that can be said here... some of your pics have promise but you have a LOT of room to improve and a lot of work ahead to get there.

Here are the biggest issues I see.. stop taking pics of peoples backs. That only works for line-of-site shots which # 2 could have been if the guy in the snake had been shooting. Otherwise it just looks like your out of place.

2. see rule of thirds. Get your subjects out of the center of the pic. Either do it when you take the pic, or crop it later. Either way, subject in center is boring.

3. Your photos don't POP. most of them look washed out with no contrast and dull color. You can fix this in camera with better exposure settings or in PS later. Best to learn how to get the proper exposure on your camera. But, you have to get out of manual to do that. I shoot paintball in AV (apeture priority).

4. be careful about cutting off players feet, arms, guns ect... Unless you are framing really tight and mean to do so. Otherwise it's just poor framing.

Get in front of the players, frame your subject off center, zoom in and get tight shots, stop shooting in manual.

Oh, and someone earlier said ISO 100 or 200. Not a good idea for action. You might pull off 200 if the lighting is AWSOME. Otherwise, ISO 400 for action. At 100 and 200 moving subjects WILL be blurry.

check out lots of paintball photography and see how the pros do it. I'm not saying copy other peoples styles, but it's a good idea to study what good photos look like.

hope that helps

__________________
Bryan

I'm not saying that stupidity should be punishable by death. But I do think we should remove all the warning labels and let the problem take care of itself.

Oh, and someone earlier said ISO 100 or 200. Not a good idea for action. You might pull off 200 if the lighting is AWSOME. Otherwise, ISO 400 for action. At 100 and 200 moving subjects WILL be blurry.

It really depends on lighting. On a sunny day, you can easily get shutter speeds of 1/1000 or faster at ISO 100 F2.8. This will freeze most action...

I said ISO 100 or 200 because he's using a PnS. The exif information for the photos that I checked said he was using ISO 80. ISO 400 with a PnS is going to be fairly noisy. Any brightening in photoshop will result in an unacceptable level of noise.

Obviously, if you've got a DSLR that handles noise very well, you can use ISO 400 or 800 with next to no loss of quality. He does not have this option.

__________________"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

yea it just seems like the vibe your givin off is negative. i dont know who you are. but btw nice pics. and yea theres a huge difference. you have been doing this probably for a while now. im just starting out somewhat. but i know what im doing. i think i have the right idea on good pictures. and im really not sure why you said dont blame it on equipment. you have a very nice, expensive camera, i dont. but the gun doesnt make the player... but it helps.

anyways nice pics and i appreciate everyones help. ill try getting something tomorrow and post it and see what you guys think. tips and comment still welcome

I guess I don't use ISO 100 because when i shoot tournies I am usually shooting from very early in the morning till late in the afternoon and in ever changing lighting situations due to placement of differnet fields at an event. My canon does well enough at 200 and 400 ISO so it's just one less adjustment I have to keep making.

__________________
Bryan

I'm not saying that stupidity should be punishable by death. But I do think we should remove all the warning labels and let the problem take care of itself.

im just starting out somewhat. but i know what im doing. i think i have the right idea on good pictures.

i think this is the problem. i don't want to sound like a dick, but the only way to say this is that you have a long way to go. you say you have the right idea on good pictures, but what you have posted, while a fine place to start, got the correct reaction. 'the right idea' isn't mostly the backs of players in the same old poses. 'the right idea' isn't chopping off only the very tip of the barrel. if you were looking for someone to tell you your pictures are amazing, apparently your local field is the place to go. i understand this may sound harsh, but if you don't change your attitude, you may not learn anything.

__________________I wrote a little song for you with a melody I'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme to repeat what you already knew, as the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation.

You kept a distance out of fear you'd break, but what good's a single windchime hanging quiet all alone? The music our collisions would make is the sound that turns "the road that leads us back home" into "home."flickr

I think the main point in "blaming your equipment" is mastering what you have at the moment. I donít see how you can say a better camera will help you take better pictures if you don't even know how to use the PNS to it's fullest potential yet.

Once you've mastered your PNS, get a DSLR. It'll make a difference, sure, but not if you don't know how to work it.

Also, if you really want to make a career out of this, I'd advise actually learning all of the camera talk because you will encounter plenty of situations where your picture would be ruined otherwise.

I don't know that hyper saturated reds really help the image. Some parts are oversaturated and the bunkers shouldn't be the thing your attention focusses on.

I tried a very quick and very simple curves adjustment and got really nice results, it only took me 20 seconds and the photo was alot better as a result. Postprocessing is definately something you'll need to add to your repertoire

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he likes to make me his *****
Because of small cock